How blogging boosts SEO and drives visitors to your website
Has your website had a tumbleweed moment? You’re not alone. When you launch a website (whether you’ve done it already or are planning to launch soon!) you probably feel a mixture of emotions. Excitement because you’re finally seeing the result of all your hard work live and online. Nervousness too; after all by having a website you put your business out there for everyone to see and judge. Maybe even a little bit of fear that there’s a mistake in the information you have on there? But in reality, when you very first set a website live you can expect… not a lot!
Without doing a little bit of work to increase your online visibility your website won’t automatically be seen by many people. Cue silence and maybe a little bit of tumbleweed… Here’s how blogging can boost your SEO and help more people find your business.
How does Google decide which websites we see when we search?
It helps to understand how Google’s search engine works. Here are three very basic things to note. Google ranks websites whose content is updated regularly higher than those which haven’t changed for months. It works on matching the words people are searching for with words which come up on websites – those are called ‘keywords’. Google also assesses the number of backlinks (that’s links to your website from other sites) and internal links (links from one page to another, for example a link from a blog page to a product page). Finally, websites with more of both kinds of links will be ranked higher by Google. And one way to satisfy all three of Google’s requirements is… by having a blog on your website!
A closer look at how blogging boosts SEO
- Adding a new blog once a week or once a fortnight will ensure fresh content in the form of new copy and images is uploaded to your website. As we already mentioned, Google loves that. Box ticked, let’s move on to the next one.
- Having a blog gives you more content on your website. I know, that sounds so obvious doesn’t it?! But more content means more chances to include keywords and that means more chances for your website, both the ‘main’ web pages and the blog posts, to show up on Google’s search engine results page.
- You can link to other pages of your website from your blogs, helping to build up those all-important internal links. To form backlinks (those are links from other websites to yours) you can offer to write guest blogs or work on some digital PR to place articles elsewhere.
Even more business benefits from having a blog
There are also lots of other benefits to having a blog too, aside from driving more people to your website. I cover those in more detail here, but in brief they are: a blog helps educate potential customers, positioning you as a subject matter expert and building trust in your brand. It shares the back story and achievements of your business and that gives you a personal front and social proof. A blog with well-placed links will guide people around your website and help them understand what you do.
So what are you waiting for? Now you know how blogging boosts SEO, surely it’s time to get started! Remember there are all sorts of things you can write about – how to guides, answering common FAQs, sharing a customer success story, announcing company news (have you launched a new product or service, maybe you’ve won an award?), delving into your back story. I’ve listed some of my favourite content ideas here (link to blog on content ideas) to give you a helping hand. If you get stuck, why not get some professional help? Writing blogs for my customers is one of my all-time favourite jobs. Why not drop me a line for a little chat?
